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Problem Solving Using Tables/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby Tim and Moby are on their knees in a garden, planting flowers. Moby points at something elsewhere in the garden. MOBY: Beep. A chipmunk is stealing a flower. TIM: Hey, cut that out! Go on, shoo! The chipmunk hops off with the stolen flower. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, How can I use a table to solve problems? From, Wes. A table is just a way to organize information in a visual form. It's basically a set of two or more related lists, arranged side by side. If you've ever kept score on a board game, you may have used a table. An image shows Tim, Moby, and a girl, Rita, playing Scrabble. TIM: Some tables arrange data vertically, in columns. That's especially useful for when you're going to add up numbers. An animation shows a three-column table, with Scrabble scores for Tim, Moby, and Rita. Someone's hand adds up the scores and writes each person's total at the bottom of each column. TIM: Tables can also be arranged in horizontal rows. You've seen tables like that a million times: at the front of a book, on menus, and on your report card! Images show a book opened to its Table of Contents, a restaurant menu, and Tim's report card. TIM: I used a spreadsheet computer program to make this table for our gardening job. Each little rectangle on the screen counts as a separate cell in the table. Tim holds a smart phone. On its screen is a table titled Community Garden Flowers, which lists how many of each type of flower he and Moby are planting. Tim runs a stylus over the screen highlighting each individual cell. TIM: This one has both columns and rows. The table on Tim's smart phone expands to include more columns. The first column lists the different flower types. The other three columns are labeled: Number of plants, Cost per plant, and Total cost The rows and columns are highlighted as Tim mentions them. TIM: It tracks all of the flowers we're planting in this community garden, along with how much they cost. The row headings tell us which flower we're talking about, and the column headings tell us what information is being given about those flowers. An image highlights the various parts of the table as Tim describes them. TIM: Simple tables like this are often used to arrange data for a graph. Tim highlights a section of the table. He then presses a key, and the table turns into a graph. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right, I was just getting to that. We can use graphs to solve the problem we're having with our little rodent friend here. The chipmunk has returned and is stealing another flower. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Chip? His name is Chip? Moby nods. TIM: Okay. Chip keeps pulling our flowers out. Chip is hunched in some leafy growth, watching Tim and Moby. TIM: I made this table to show how much damage he does per hour. This is called a frequency table: it shows how often something happens. A table on Tim's smart phone shows how many flowers Chip has taken and when he has taken them. It has two columns labeled Time Period and Plants Eaten. TIM: According to this, Chip is eating 5 plants, or about 1 square meter of garden, per hour. And we have to plant 24 square meters of garden. An animation shows five plants in the garden. A square box appears around the plants that measures one meter on each side. The plants in the square disappear. Then the perspective widens to show the whole garden as a grid of 24 squares. The grid is 4 meters wide and 6 meters long. TIM: Moby and I are planting about 7 square meters per hour. With Chip gobbling up 1 square meter of our efforts per hour, how long will it take us to finish our task? MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, we can use a table to figure it out quickly. At the end of 1 hour, we've planted 7 square meters of flowers, and Chip had torn up 1 square meter, leaving us with a total of 6 square meters planted. In the grid, 7 individual cells fill with images of flowers. Then one cell empties. In the end, 6 square meters of flowers remain after 1 hour. TIM: We can fill that in on a table, like so. A spreadsheet shows a table with four rows labeled Hours passed, Square meter planted, Square meter pulled up by Chip, and Total square meters planted. Tim fills in numbers in each row to reflect the number of flowers planted and pulled up in an hour. TIM: Assuming both Chip, Moby, and I work at the same rate, we can fill in the rest of the chart to see how many hours this whole job will take us. Notice that for each new hour, we’re adding the amount from the column just before it to the amount from the first column, which represents 1 hour. The rest of the table fills in as Tim describes. TIM: Because we were good about filling in the numbers on the table, we can find out all sorts of stuff. Like how many square meters we can plant in 2 hours. Or how long it’ll take Chip to pull up 3 square feet. Most importantly, we know this job will take 4 hours. The cells are highlighted as Tim describes them. MOBY: Beep. Moby looks upset. TIM: Aww, c’mon, 4 hours is nothing. It'd go faster if Chip wasn't pulling up flowers, but still… Moby points. MOBY: Beep. Chip has set up a flower stand. He is selling the stolen flowers for one dollar each. Tim looks mad. TIM: Oh, Chip! Category:BrainPOP Transcripts